Welcome to Bimmerfest -- The #1 Online Community for BMW related information! Please enjoy the discussion forums below and share your experiences with the 200,000 current, new and past BMW owners. The forums are broken out by car model and into other special interest sections such as BMW European Delivery and a special forum to voice your questions to the many BMW dealers on the site to assist our members!

E90/E91/E92/E93 (2006 - 2013) The E9X is the 4th evolution of the BMW 3 series including a highly tuned twin turbo 335i variant pushing out 300hp and 300 ft. lbs. of torque. BMW continues to show that it sets the bar for true driving performance! -- View the E9X Wiki

So, I purchased my first BMW last August (2012). It is a 2011leftover (new). I am not real knowledgeable of BMWs but so far I love the car. Treat it well and garage it for most of the winter. Thus far I have managed to put 4,500 miles on my car. Previously I had owned Hondas. All v6 -EL. I religously rotated my tires every 5,000 mi. I read on this forum that BMW does not suggest rotation. All of my four tires are the same size on my 328. Does anyone here rotate RFTs?. Can my ind tire guy do this correctly? Comments? Thanks.

If you've got a non-staggered setup, feel free to rotate front two tires, to back two. Don't go criss-cross or any of that crap. If there's an alignment issue, you'll know right real quick right after you swap, as the car will pull noticeably. I rotate every 6K miles on go-flats.

Yes, if you have non-staggered (for example, say, you don't have the sports package) wheels/tires of the same size, feel free to rotate each side front to back. Your mechanic will have no trouble.

BMW used to not recommend rotation due to front suspension settings for better performance (grip). Last time I looked, that advice was absent in recent owner's manuals I've checked.

Likely you will find opinions mixed on this.

The main reason BMW discouraged tire rotations was the fact that a tire needs about 300 miles of break in when moved. That, paired with the questionable evidence that on a RWD car you really gain anything by rotating tires prompted that recommendation.

It was never part of the manual though, was it? On staggered setups, as already indicated, rotating tires makes no sense at all, since only a side to side rotation would be possible.

The main reason BMW discouraged tire rotations was the fact that a tire needs about 300 miles of break in when moved. That, paired with the questionable evidence that on a RWD car you really gain anything by rotating tires prompted that recommendation.

It was never part of the manual though, was it? On staggered setups, as already indicated, rotating tires makes no sense at all, since only a side to side rotation would be possible.

Yes, BMW's admonition against tire/wheel rotation has been included in the owner's manual for many years. My 2013 manual includes it.

If you look at present day tire manufacturer's warranties for replacement market tires with mileage provisions, they all demand regular tire rotations (typically 6 - 8K miles) as a condition of receiving "remedy" under the mileage provision of the warranty (non-staggered fitments).

Yes, BMW's admonition against tire/wheel rotation has been included in the owner's manual for many years. My 2013 manual includes it.

If you look at present day tire manufacturer's warranties for replacement market tires with mileage provisions, they all demand regular tire rotations (typically 6 - 8K miles) as a condition of receiving "remedy" under the mileage provision of the warranty (non-staggered fitments).

On my FWD cars I have seen a potential benefit for rotating, but really, once you do a few calculations and consider that in most cases, it would be best to replace all 4 instead of 2 tires, I see no reason to rotate, unless you want something to do in the garage at regular intervals.

Since tire manufacture's recommend it as a basis for warranties, I figure they just want an easy out if you can't prove you rotated.

I purposely ordered my car w/o the sport pkg. for exactly this reason. I got 48k miles out of my previous 3 Coupe's tires by rotating every 5k miles, and got almost 36k miles out of the original tires on the Lexus (18" vs. 17" on the BMW).

The main reason BMW discouraged tire rotations was the fact that a tire needs about 300 miles of break in when moved. That, paired with the questionable evidence that on a RWD car you really gain anything by rotating tires prompted that recommendation.

It was never part of the manual though, was it? On staggered setups, as already indicated, rotating tires makes no sense at all, since only a side to side rotation would be possible.

and BMW also recommends changing oil every 15,000 miles, not a good recommendation IMO

No need to rotate. I have had 4 sets of tires on my X5 in 90k miles in 4 1/2 years all with the OEM runflats. As an experiment I tried rotating them every other set. It made no difference in tire life but the rotated sets of tires became noisy durring the last part of the tires life. So rotating them was a waste. If the alignments were not aggressive it would be different. On a lighter 3 series, it may help some with tire life, but if you pay for the rotation what you gain in tire life you paid the money to rotate so you don't gain any savings. If the tires have not been rotated in 10k miles on a BMW don't waste your time since the wear pattern for each corner is set and you feel a difference. I have to many people complain about how the car drives after a rotation on BMW's.

As every BMW I've owned (all rwd) has tended to wear the rear tires twice as fast as the fronts, the option has been to either replace in pairs or rotate. With non staggered wheels, I tend to rotate at 10 to 15k mile intervals, and my BMW dealer has no problem doing the service.

As every BMW I've owned (all rwd) has tended to wear the rear tires twice as fast as the fronts, the option has been to either replace in pairs or rotate. With non staggered wheels, I tend to rotate at 10 to 15k mile intervals, and my BMW dealer has no problem doing the service.

Simply replacing the worn-out front tires will not be an option if the rear tires have a wear differential of 2/32nd' or more...the rears (very likely worn erratically) will have to be brought to the front and new tires to the rear.